Newbie Looking for Feedback

[JackpotGenius]

Hello All! so I am new to the forums and I'm just getting started with setting up a few new gaming affiliate websites...I've got some experience with PHP, cakePHP etc and wordpress also know a little bit about SEO but not enough (is there ever enough?)

Anyway I'd love to get some feedback and thoughts from other members on one of the sites I'm working on: http://www.thecasinodb.com (hope I'm allowed to post that)...

The site is meant to give players advanced search features for casinos, filterable and searchable as well as attached bonuses, licences, payment methods etc. I've built a favourites feature and a bonus tracking system, for registered accounts too.

Well thats it...any first thoughts on the site? I was thinking about maybe providing a widget for people to place on their sites with the bonus tracking somehow but not really sure...I'm new to building links etc so if anyone is interested in working with me just drop me a PM

oh last thing...I can build a site, but I cant seem to figure out how to set a profile picture on here can anyone help? lol

 

[edgarf76]

Welcome to the forum, I voted no for the bonus widget. The reason is because you are a new affiliate, however I do not know about your backround in marketing, I see that you are just getting started with this niche.


Just from looking at your site I would say add more content, that is the first thing to focus on. You have a top bar banner up, and IMO you should add more content between the topbar banner and the new casinos section. You can also put a hyper link with a call to action in that paragraph with "USA Online Slots" of best "USA Online Sportsbooks", whatever you are trying to target.

YOur news section is blank, I would think that building your inner pages and then building your news section would be the best primary focus. Good luck!

 

[CaseyM]

How long will the widget take you to build?

 

[MacCOR]

As for the profile picture question - when you are logged in, click on your nickname on the upper right and then Avatar

 

[JackpotGenius]

Hi Edgar, thanks for the feedback...I wasnt too sure about promoting for USA sites as I'm unsure of the regulation/legality of it and then what affiliate programs to trust with it...obviously I know the US market is big but if I want to advertise the site I'm going to need to make sure its all above board on that front. About the content you are certainly right...I'm just finishing the last pieces of functionality and then focus will switch to content, adding casinos, bonuses, providers and news.

How long will the widget take you to build?

Its a good question, but generally this depends on what kind of functionality it has...I think I can have an iframed widget available pretty quickly that just shows their last claimed bonus or a list of claimed bonuses...that would be a sinch. But I'm not sure how useful this would be to other guys sites, obviously whatever it is needs to compliment rather than distract from your sites content. Other features I was thinking of were possibly some kind of API, for example you pass a casino ID and it would return all games that are associated with that casino, game name, logo, demo url (if available) and official demo trailer url for inserting... you could then display and present the content uniquely in your casino review... or use it to create mobile apps etc

just spit balling really, there don't seem to be many services out there like this so I thought it might be interesting...

 

[JackpotGenius]

As for the profile picture question - when you are logged in, click on your nickname on the upper right and then Avatar

Thanks although it seems I havent posted enough to set an Avatar or a signature yet I just searched the forum and found this: https://www.affiliateguarddog.com/community/threads/update-signature-and-avatar.7298/#post-49574 in case anyone else that's new is wondering! at least I know I'm not going crazy...just yet anyway

 

[CaseyM]

There are not many services like that so it would definitely be interesting, as long as it's not going to eat up all your time; I voted for yes

 

[JackpotGenius]

cool thanks for the feedback...I'm going to complete the core functionality of the site today and then need to start populating some content, no use having a feed of games when there are 3 listed after that I'll run through some ideas for some widgets that might be useful to other affiliates, I'm also considering a "Review Blogs" page which would link out to affiliates that use and are linked to TheCasinoDb...baby steps first...

 

[JackpotGenius]

okay I got a little carried away and created the widget for anyone who is interested in giving your players a tool to track their bonuses and then reference it on your site...I'll get around to adding more like this, possibly to pull in data from thecasinodb system, extra API/dynamic content and interactivity etc...any suggestions are very welcome, the database is going to be built up quite quickly to make it a large usable resource for everyone. Anyone who works with me using these widgets I'm happy to link back to your sites as a recommended blog and/or review site for gambling etc.

The "Recently Claimed Bonuses" (name suggestion welcome ) widget works like this:

1. Insert the widget code to your site, its responsive so it should fit in any width but best suited to a side bar i'd suggest:

<!--TCDB Previously Recently Claimed Bonuses Script-->
<script src="http://www.thecasinodb.com/users/claimedbonuses/?num=5" ></script>
<!--Script End-->

2. Edit the "num" parameter for the number of claimed bonuses to display, it will display most recently claimed first.

3. Use inspect element to customize colours via CSS and the "!important" tag to override the default colors if required.

That is it...keep in mind that in order for it to work the user has to be logged in, a bit like the facebook widget. If someone needs to login to the account it opens in a new tab for login and is automatically redirected back to your site. I setup a test example on http://www.gambling-bonus.co.uk which is a wordpress dev site, widget displays as follows:

love to hear anyones thoughts on this one

 

[edgarf76]

Hi Edgar, thanks for the feedback...I wasnt too sure about promoting for USA sites as I'm unsure of the regulation/legality of it and then what affiliate programs to trust with it...obviously I know the US market is big but if I want to advertise the site I'm going to need to make sure its all above board on that front. About the content you are certainly right...I'm just finishing the last pieces of functionality and then focus will switch to content, adding casinos, bonuses, providers and news.



Its a good question, but generally this depends on what kind of functionality it has...I think I can have an iframed widget available pretty quickly that just shows their last claimed bonus or a list of claimed bonuses...that would be a sinch. But I'm not sure how useful this would be to other guys sites, obviously whatever it is needs to compliment rather than distract from your sites content. Other features I was thinking of were possibly some kind of API, for example you pass a casino ID and it would return all games that are associated with that casino, game name, logo, demo url (if available) and official demo trailer url for inserting... you could then display and present the content uniquely in your casino review... or use it to create mobile apps etc

just spit balling really, there don't seem to be many services out there like this so I thought it might be interesting...

Keep up the good work!

 

[Gary Gillies]

Layout looks smooth and like the Mini graphs.

Selling points do not really hit me though. Liking to call to action buttons though.

Think it just needs a bit more to stand out though.

 

[Neil]

Nice site, from a design perspective you should get rid of that tiled background. Also, icons for logos are old hat. I would also make your buttons etc flat and square (it's the latest design pattern now), check out the most popular themes on themeforest.com, they're very simple and contemporary. Layout of the site is great.